A Study On The Correlation Between English Learning Strategies And English Achievement Of Junior Middle School Students

In recent years, the relationship between the utilization of English learning strategies and students’ English achievement has received more attention by researchers. However, the studies at home and abroad on English learning strategies pay more attention to college students and less to middle school students.In order to make up for the deficiency of relevant researches, the present study aims to examine the features of English learning strategy use among junior middle school students, to detect the differences in employment of English learning strategies between high and low achievement groups, and to probe into the relationship between students’ employment of language learning strategies and English achievement.On the basis of Oxford’s(1990) classification of language learning strategies, this study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze data on English learning strategies. That is, the SILL questionnaire and interview were adopted in the present research. The subjects of the study included three parallel classes of ninth grade from No.12 Middle School of Xuchang City. The responses to questionnaires were analyzed through SPSS 18.0, and the results of interview were classified and summarized by the researcher. The findings of the present study are listed below.Firstly, generally speaking, middle school students utilize the English learning strategies from time to time. Amid the six types of learning strategies, compensation and cognitive strategies are employed the most frequently while memory and social strategies are utilized less frequently.Secondly, students with high English achievement employ the English learning strategies more often than students with low English achievement. There exist significant differences in the employment of overall learning strategies and six categories of learning strategies between high and low achievement groups.Thirdly, all of the six types of English learning strategies are significantly and positively correlated with students’ English achievement.It is hoped that the findings of the study may provide valuable pedagogical implications for English education of junior middle schools by revealing the problems in students’ English learning strategy use and deficiencies of English teaching.